Archaeologists stunned by 'astonishing' ancient Greek 'computer' that 'shouldn't exist'
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ARCHAEOLOGISTS have been stunned for years by what they describe as the world's oldest analogue computer that was used in ancient Greece.
Ancient Greece has, over the years, turned up a wealth of artefacts and relics, offering researchers a brief glimpse into a world forever gone. Those who once called ancient Greece home, in turn, made some of the biggest breakthrough discoveries in history – that the planets orbit the Sun, the size of the Moon, the Earth's circumference, the first astronomical calculator. But it is this last one that has perplexed researchers and archaeologists the most.
Known as the Antikythera mechanism, it is a 2,000-year-old Ancient Greek hand-powered orrery — a mechanical model of the Solar System — and has been described as the oldest example of an analogue computer.
The Ancient Greeks used it to predict astronomical positions and eclipses decades in advance, also using it to track the cycle of the ancient Olympic Games.
An unprecedented find, it was among wreckage retrieved from a shipwreck off the coast of the Greek island Antikythera in 1901, identified as containing a gear the following year by archaeologist Valerios Stais.
Its significance was explored during the BBC's reel, 'The ancient computer that simply shouldn't exist', where Professor Tony Freeth of University College London (UCL), who has carried out extensive research on the mechanism divulged its secrets and intricacies.
Among the treasure trove were marble statues, elegant vases, glistening jewellery and ancient coins, and what looked to be a hunk of corroded metal that "no one knew quite what to do with".
Prof Freeth said: "It was now recognised at all as being anything interesting when it was discovered, it was just a corroded lump about the size of a large dictionary."
But after Mr Stais discovered it had gear wheels inside it, everyone became excited about what it may have once been used for.
Prof Freeth explained: "This was the first shock because anything from ancient Greece simply shouldn't have gear wheels.
"These were precision gears with teeth about a millimetre long.
"And, this was just completely shocking.
It was soon discovered that the Antikythera mechanism was a dedicated calculating machine, using its bronze gear wheels to calculate the cycles of the cosmos.
But, the question of why the ancient Greeks created such a device has plagued experts since its discovery.
Prof Freeth believes it was conceived in order to calculate the Greeks' astrological theories.
While this is something we take for granted today, he noted: "In those days the idea that your scientific theories could be mechanised was absolutely astonishing."
Today, the Antikythera mechanism is kept in a museum in Athens and is split into 82 fragments with much of it missing.
In the years since its discovery, modern technology has vastly changed and advanced what we know about the mechanism.
In the Seventies, a team x-rayed the device and the first secrets were revealed: dozens of cogs hidden within it.
But, it was not until 3D X-ray technology came along that they could separate the gears.
Prof Freeth and his team took an eight-tonne X-ray machine to the museum in Athens and took data from all the 82 surviving fragments of the mechanism.
He said: 'When we first looked at the results it was astonishing because it showed us not only all the gear wheels in three dimensions so we could separate them, but it showed us all these new inscriptions in the fragments as well."
An entire world of secrets was revealed to the researchers in what has been termed a "user guide" to the mechanism, the instructions hidden within the folds of corroded bronze.
It is from this data that nearly all of the breakthrough discoveries have come from.
The researchers discovered that it predicted eclipses, that it followed the variable motion of the Moon, among other things.
Previous experts had been able to model the back of the mechanism up until Prof Freeth's X-ray.
But Prof Freeth's work allowed the researchers for the first time to see the front of the device, revealing thousands of text characters in ancient Greek.
He and his team are now taking their theoretical model and will use Greek techniques to build a physical model of the mechanism.
It is hoped that modern technology added on top of this creation may reveal "more secrets" of the ancient world. nonstop news
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